Unchained: Big Ideas From The Worlds Of Blockchain And Fintech

The blockchain is about to transform every trust-based interaction of our lives, from financial services to identity, from health care to our Internet of Things devices. In this podcast, host Laura Shin talks with industry pioneers across tech, financial services, health care, government and other sectors about how the blockchain and fintech will open up new opportunities for incumbents, startups and everyday people to interact more efficiently, directly and globally.

The blockchain is about to transform every trust-based interaction of our lives, from financial services to identity, from health care to our Internet of Things devices. In this podcast, host Laura Shin talks with industry pioneers across tech, financial services, health care, government and other sectors about how the blockchain and fintech will open up new opportunities for incumbents, startups and everyday people to interact more efficiently, directly and globally.

The blockchain is about to transform every trust-based interaction of our lives, from financial services to identity, from health care to our Internet of Things devices. In this podcast, host Laura Shin talks with industry pioneers across tech, financial services, health care, government and other sectors about how the blockchain and fintech will open up new opportunities for incumbents, startups and everyday people to interact more efficiently, directly and globally.

Episodes

Josh Stein, CEO of Harbor, and Danny An, cofounder and CEO of TrustToken, talk about security tokens and tokens backed by real-world assets, often called an unsexy area of crypto. They explain the strategies their teams are using to tackle the tokenization of what currently constitute $250 trillion in assets, what kinds of new behaviors and business opportunities "faster, cheaper, more liquid" assets could open up, and how they'll comply with regulations across all jurisdictions for markets...

In July in San Francisco, I moderated a panel at "Distributed 2018: Unlocking the Global Power of Decentralized Business." The title of our discussion was "Innovate or Reinvent?" and the panelists were Amber Baldet, cofounder and CEO of Clovyr, Matt Roszak, cofounder and chairman of Bloq, and Lily Liu, cofounder of Earn.com. We had a wide-ranging discussion, which included topics such as how the "Crypto 50" combined have more budget for blockchain development services than Fortune 50...

Roham Gharegozlou, CEO of Dapper Labs, the company behind CryptoKitties, and Benny Giang, Dapper Labs’ head of Asia, describe how employees at venture studio AxiomZen came up with the idea for CryptoKitties, what problems it exposed in crypto (beyond scaling!), and how CryptoKitties can teach people the value of decentralization. They also defend the $140,000 price tag on one kitty, explain how they plan to grow from the current 300 users per day that the blockchain is logging, and surmise...

In this hilarious skeptics' episode, Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer of CoinShares, and Jill Carlson, an independent consultant, explain why they think crypto needs fewer moral arguments and more empirical evidence, and how there's too much focus on financial engineering, but not enough focus on winning hearts and minds. They also explain why people are not machines where "you put in a token and get out an action," what the "shitcoin waterfall" is, and why cryptoeconomics isn't...

Kathleen Breitman, CEO of Dynamic Ledger Solutions, behind the Tezos protocol, and Ryan Jesperson, president of the foundation, discuss the Tezos initial coin offering, which was the largest ICO at the time of sale. Kathleen explains why she wouldn't do anything differently, except for the choice of foundation head, Johann Gevers, with whom Kathleen and her co-creator and husband, Arthur Breitman, ended up in multiple disputes. She muses as to why many people initially praised Gevers and...

Yaya Fanusie, director of analysis at the Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Tom Robinson, chief data officer and cofounder of blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, discuss how common money laundering is in crypto, how jihadist groups are using it, and how privacy coins (really Monero) affect their work. (The reason why the dark markets haven't much used Zcash surprised me.) We also discuss bad state actors using cryptocurrency, such as...

Jeremy Allaire, cofounder and CEO of Circle, and Sean Neville, cofounder and president, discuss why they think the internet of value will be even bigger than the internet of information and how all assets will be tokenized. They also talk about why they're launching a stable coin, how their services in payments, exchange and investing will compete against decentralized versions of the same, and how they chose the assets for Circle Invest -- and why XRP didn't make the cut. They also...

Chris Dixon, partner at Andreessen Horowitz, talks about the new $300 million crypto fund he is leading with Kathryn Haun, the new general partner of Andreessen, and how a16z came to hire its first female GP. The long-time crypto entrepreneur also discusses his theory of how crypto will grow -- and why Cryptokitties was one example of how that might happen -- his nights-and-weekend theory of technological change, and his view that writing software and smart contracts is similar to writing...

In an episode of strong positions, Blockchain Capital partner and Bitcoin educator Jimmy Song explains why private blockchains will never work, why smart contracts will never work, and why Bitcoin will be the one and only valuable cryptocurrency. He also gives his definition sound money, describes why Bitcoin is sound money, and talks about how he finds new companies to invest in if he believes Bitcoin is already the winner. Plus, he recounts the story of his buzz-generating debate with...

This is a live recording from a panel I moderated at the World Economic Forum Industry Strategy Meeting. The speakers included Shwetha Shetty Senior Director, Corporate Strategy Group, of SAP, Adam Ludwin, CEO of Chain, Brian Behlendorf, executive director of HyperLedger the Linux Foundation and Sheila Warren, project head of blockchain and distributed ledger technology at the World Economic Forum.We dive into the pros and cons of using blockchains for elections. which types of problems...

David Vorick, CEO of Nebulous, which operates Siacoin and a new subsidiary, Obelisk, describes what he's discovered in his exploration of the mining industry, including why he's decided that specialized chips like ASICs are preferable to generalized chips like GPUs, even if they tend to bring out mining centralization. He also describes Obelisk's new service, Launchpad,which secures exclusive deals to create a custom proof-of-work algorithm for a coin and also the mining equipment for it,...

This is a recording of a panel discussion I participated in with a couple other reporters and crypto PR people at Consensus. (It was at the same time as Jack's talk, so it's totally understandable if you missed it. Also, the room was freezing. I was shivering the entire time.) The other panelists were Leigh Cuen of CoinDesk, Avi Salzman of Barron's (and my old classmate from grad school!), Jill Richmond of Spark PR, Trey Ditto of Ditto PR, and the discussion was moderated by Frank Chaparro...

Joel Monegro, partner at crypto VC firm Placeholder Ventures, describes how well his seminal blog post, "Fat Protocols," is holding up, why he and his partner Chris Burniske opted to found a crypto VC firm as opposed to a hedge fund, and what main factors they think will determine the success of a blockchain. He also describes how crypto and blockchains fit into the evolution of technology, how the business models in the crypto space will be built, and why their first publicly known...

This recording is of Blockchain vs. the Surveillance State, a series of talks and a panel from the Oslo Freedom Forum put on by the Human Rights Foundation. In this session, hear presentations from Ryan Shea of decentralized technology platform Blockstack; Galia Benartzi of smart token platform Bancor; Steve Waterhouse of surveillance-free internet project Orchid; and Arthur Breitman from smart contract platform Tezos. Afterward, I moderate a panel among the four speakers that touches on...

Arthur Hayes, CEO of Bitmex, describes how traders on his platform can make great gains but experience limited losses, how Asia's crypto markets differ from those in the U.S., and why he makes money whether or not crypto prices go up or down. He also describes why ICOs are crap now but why he fully supports the idea in theory and how they should get back to their roots. He also explains why he believes governments will issue digital cash, and why he believes everyday people will be...

Jonathan Levin, cofounder and chief operating officer for blockchain analytics company Chainalysis, describes how the company was born out of questions he had while a grad student, how they began mapping the Bitcoin blockchain to certain entities, and how their customers, which include government agencies such as the FBI, DEA, IRS, Europol and others, use Chainalysis to help solve Bitcoin crimes. He also reveals what level of detail the software tracks, how privacy coins could affect their...

Jesse Powell, CEO of crypto asset exchange Kraken, explains why he publicly rejected then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's request for information from crypto exchanges, why he felt it was a publicity stunt and why Kraken, which stopped serving New York customers after New York's Bitlicense was introduced, doesn't see the market as a top priority. He also talks about why Kraken decided to stop operations in Japan after further regulations were imposed and discusses Kraken's $1 million...

This recording of a panel I moderated at Ethereal with Ethereum researcher Vlad Zamfir and GovernX founder Nick Dodson covered the question that it seems everyone in crypto is discussing these days: governance. We talk about how the community should decide big questions like whether or not to unlock the funds frozen by bugs, on-chain governance, what role the Ethereum Foundation plays and what it means that nearly all the people who write Ethereum's code are men.
Nick Dodson:...

The newly appointed head of the Ethereum Foundation, Aya Miyaguchi, talks about her background as a teacher, at Kraken, helping the Mt. Gox trustee unwind that mess, and the closed process by which she was plucked for her current role. She also describes her goals with the Ethereum Foundation, how the EF believes the Ethereum community should make decisions, how it defines community and more. She also talks about how she hopes to push more financial inclusion with Ethereum, and what she...

In this show, recorded without the participation of Ripple (explanation included in the show), Ryan Selkis, CEO and founder of Messari and Matt Leising, Bloomberg reporter, discuss Ripple's XRP, the third-largest coin by market cap. We go over whether or not it plays an essential role in Ripple's products, why banks are unlikely to adopt it, and why it's centralized. We also discuss whether or not it's an unregistered security (although the class-action lawsuit alleging XRP is an...